Social Theorist
Leslie White
Also Known As John Steel (pseudonym used for Socialist Labor Party newspaper articles)
Anthropology
Leslie White was an American anthropologist who revived evolutionary theory in twentieth-century anthropology after decades of dominance by Boasian historical particularism, arguing that culture evolves as a general, measurable process rather than only through unique, historically contingent local sequences. In works including The Evolution of Culture (1959) he proposed that the level of cultural development in a society could be measured by the amount of energy it harnessed and put to work per capita, so that the domestication of plants and animals, and later the harnessing of fossil fuels, marked major thresholds of general cultural evolution. White's energy theory of culture and his insistence on the culture concept as a superorganic system operating by its own laws, independent of any individual member, made him a central and often polemical figure in the mid-century debate over evolutionary versus historical approaches in American anthropology.
Facts
Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionArgued that a society's level of cultural development could be measured by the amount of energy harnessed and used per capita, with technology as the primary determinant of cultural evolution. 1 Notable WorkThe Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (1959) 1 Connections
Rejected Here
Steward framed his multilinear cultural evolution explicitly against White universal evolutionary model.
Source Julian Steward (Wikipedia)
Critiqued Here
Lowie, a Boasian, publicly criticized White evolutionary theorizing in these terms.
Source Leslie White (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Leslie White (Wikipedia)
Wikipediaopening paragraph, infobox line (birth date)
Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado, March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist
opening paragraph, infobox line (birth year)
Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado, March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist
opening paragraph, infobox line (birthplace)
Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado, March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist
opening paragraph, infobox line (death date)
Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado, March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist
opening paragraph, infobox line (death year)
Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado, March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist
opening paragraph, infobox line (death place)
Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado, March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist
opening paragraph, infobox line (nationality)
Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado, March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist
Anthropology section, 1959 theory paragraph
His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome, rekindled the interest in social evolutionism
Anthropology section, technological determinism paragraph
He argued that it was the technological component which plays a primary role or is the primary determining factor responsible for the cultural evolution.
Anthropology section, Marxism paragraph
he visited the Soviet Union and on his return joined the Socialist Labor Party, writing articles under the pseudonym "John Steel" for their newspaper
Associated With: Robert Lowie, Anthropology section, Boasian opposition paragraph
Robert Lowie, a proponent of Boas's work, referred to White's work as "a farrago of immature metaphysical notions"
View the Source Julian Steward (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Julian Steward, Work and influence section, multilinear vs universal paragraphQuote, Associated With: Julian Steward, Work and influence section, multilinear vs universal paragraph
In evolutionary terms, he described cultural ecology as "multi-linear", in contrast to the unilinear typological models popular during the 19th century, and Leslie White's "universal" model
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